Taxi transfer
Dharamshala to Manali
A hundred kilometres apart on a map and two hundred and forty by road, because the Dhauladhar has no crossing. This is the long way round, and it is the only way round.
- Route
- Palampur · Baijnath · Jogindernagar · Mandi · Kullu
- Driving time
- 7–8 hrs
- Distance
- 240 km
This page is the drive itself — one day, Dharamshala to Manali. If you would rather stop along the way, we run it as The big Himachal loop.
Dharamshala → Manali
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This is the drive that explains Himachal’s geography better than a map does. Two of the state’s best-known towns sit on opposite sides of one ridge, and getting between them means a day in the car going the long way round the end of it.
It is not a hard drive. The first half, through Palampur and Baijnath to Jogindernagar, is quiet two-lane road with tea gardens on one side and a four-thousand-metre wall on the other, and there is almost no traffic on it because it is not on the way to anywhere popular.
The second half, from Mandi onwards, is the main Kullu highway and behaves like one. We plan the day so the difficult part happens before the light goes.
On the way
Where we stop, and why
- Stop 135 km inPalampur
Forty minutes in, with tea gardens on both sides of the road and the Dhauladhar directly above them. If you are leaving early this is where breakfast happens, and it is worth taking outside rather than in the car — it is the closest to the mountains you will be all day.
- Stop 250 km inBaijnath
A ninth-century stone temple to Shiva, still in daily use, sitting just off the road with the range behind it. It takes fifteen minutes and it is the single most worthwhile stop on this route. Photography is fine outside; go quietly inside because people are praying rather than visiting.
- Stop 385 km inJogindernagar
The end of the narrow-gauge railway from Pathankot and the beginning of the climb over to the Mandi side. There is a hydroelectric haulage line here that runs straight up the hillside, which is more interesting than it sounds. Practically, it is the last town before an hour of empty road.
- Stop 4150 km inMandi
Where this road finally meets the main Chandigarh–Manali highway, and the moment the drive stops being quiet and starts being busy. It is also the psychological halfway point even though it is past two thirds, because everything after it is a road most people have already driven.
The road
What the drive is actually like
Surface and traffic
The thing to understand about this drive is why it is long. Manali sits roughly a hundred kilometres from Dharamshala in a straight line, but the Dhauladhar runs between them and there is no motorable crossing — so the road goes east along the range to Jogindernagar, drops over to Mandi, and comes back up the Beas. That detour is the whole journey. Nothing shorter exists for a car, and a map that appears to offer one is showing a trekking route or a dead-end valley. The surface is good for the first half, which is a pleasant two-lane road through tea country with almost no traffic on it. From Mandi you join the main highway and inherit its problems, including the damaged Mandi–Pandoh section that governs every journey into the Kullu valley. It is a long day in the car but an easy one to drive, and the first three hours are among the nicer roads in the state precisely because nobody is on them.
Through the year
Open all year, with the caveat that the second half is only as reliable as the Kullu valley highway on that particular day. The Kangra half — Dharamshala to Jogindernagar — is low, gentle and rarely troubled by anything except heavy monsoon rain, which makes the tea-garden stretch slow rather than closed. The Mandi to Manali half is the one that can cost you hours in July and August. In winter the whole route stays open; snow is a Manali-and-above problem rather than a road-in problem, and Jogindernagar and Mandi sit low enough that they rarely see any. The best months to actually enjoy this drive are late September through November, when the monsoon damage has been cleared, the tea is green and the Dhauladhar is out from behind cloud for most of the day.
The car
What we would send
Questions
What people ask about this run
Is there really no shorter route?
Not for a car. The range between the two valleys is unbroken by any road, so every option — bus, taxi, private car — goes round via Mandi. The only ways across are on foot over high passes, which is a multi-day trek and a completely different proposition. Anything promising a short cut is either a walking route or a valley that does not go through.
Can we break it at Bir or Barot?
Bir is directly on this road and makes an excellent overnight — it costs you nothing in distance and turns a long day into two short ones. Barot is a detour up a side valley and back, so it adds a couple of hours, but it is a good detour if you have the day. Either way we charge the same route with a night halt rather than treating it as a separate trip.
Which direction is better to do it in?
Dharamshala to Manali, if you have the choice, because it puts the quiet scenic half at the start when everyone is still looking out of the window and the busy highway half at the end when they are not. Going the other way you spend the fresh part of the morning in Kullu valley traffic.
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